


Written into the Pages of Memory

by MioyatThePineapple



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Gen, Mild Angst, Slice of Life, fifty percent character analysis/development, fifty percent plot, headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-22 06:29:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16592603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MioyatThePineapple/pseuds/MioyatThePineapple
Summary: Robin tries to return a diary. With "tries" being the key word.It's hard to return something to someone who seems to have never existed.Especially when nobody seems to care.(Takes place really, really early game.)





	Written into the Pages of Memory

 

They watched from a distance. That was all they did. And they only looked away when they noticed that he was watching back. Some kind of a gap between the two parties existed which seemingly nothing could span; if there was, then neither was aware, and it was partly due to unwillingness to even try to reach the other side.

Robin watched from a distance; it was all he felt he could do. And, more than watching- he _noticed._

The most benign of the reactions had been the initial ones, the ones that were mostly of surprise- that Chrom had picked a Plegian nobody from a field to co-lead his militia, when there were plenty of educated Ylisseans back in the capital, more qualified replacements (but only if you discarded anything that might’ve made them tacticians in the first place, for battles had no care for house or title, only the true skill of the person giving orders). More prevalent nowadays: jealousy, which followed the surprise that had faded all too quickly. Sometimes mixed in with _resentment_ , the gazes following him everywhere he went throughout the palace and weighing him down like they were made of iron instead of envy. He tried his best to avoid it- to avoid them all- but it was impossible to escape the atmosphere, to stop the _staring_ , so all he did was- watch.

Robin couldn’t bring himself to blame them, not really. He didn’t doubt that most of them had been playing the political game for their entire lives, trying to set themselves or their children into favorable positions, only to have an outlier so easily condemned as antagonist flip the board over and thoughtlessly scatter the pieces, crushing them to dust along with their ambitions. A few were still desperately searching for evidence that would expose him as a spy; they were the ones who were unable to see themselves as anything but victims and Robin himself as the villain who had destroyed everything with a single callous play of his hand.

(He wasn’t worried about what they wouldn’t find. And maybe he would’ve welcomed it, anyways.)

Despite that, he also couldn’t bring himself to quit, for a number of reasons. He enjoyed the free lodging provided, because it was a space for him, where he could be alone and away from everyone and everything they brought with them- and it came with a _bed,_ which was a bit too soft for him to sleep easily, but it was still more comfortable than anything he remembered sleeping on before (mostly the ground, with sticks and rocks prodding at his back, itchy grass and the occasional-but-still-terrifying bug- terrifying for Lissa for fear of getting stung and to the rest because she never seemed to be _quietly_ terrified)- and- it was _free_. The food was free too, but that was more of an expectation: Chrom wouldn’t have a tactician for long if he forgot to feed him. Free books, the unused, unwanted, unnoticed ones delivered to his room on a semi-regular basis, were possibly the best part of the job.

On certain days, mostly after excursions from the area around Ylisstol, when he was already tired and the _weight_ became an extra, unbearable load, he would retreat to his room and read. Attach himself to the characters and lose even more of himself in those stories. And on this certain day, a bit past noon, which was edging on dawn for a Plegian whose internal clock hadn’t quite adjusted to a Ylissean schedule yet, Robin was trying to keep himself awake by- reading.

Glancing over the words printed on text did nothing to clear the fogginess- reading stirred thinking, which was the many-times-tested best way to keep Robin awake: give him an unsolvable riddle and it would either be exhaustion or satisfaction, followed by immediate unconsciousness, that claimed him first. And this book was a puzzle without an answer: not yet, at least.

At a glance, it was completely unremarkable, and on a closer inspection, that was exactly the issue: leather cover, no title nor author, plain in every single regard- except for the contents. Page one was a speech renouncing the author’s parents, page two a somewhat rueful rescinding, page three a woeful recollection of a rejection by a very pretty girl, all in first person, and he’d reached the end of the fourth before he’d realized that he was reading someone’s diary: a collection of personal thoughts that had somehow ended up in the hands of a stranger.

Returning it, the most obvious and polite thing to do, and also currently something he couldn’t, given absolutely no identifying markers. The diary itself contained no helpful information, either, though the thought that if the owner wanted their diary back, they wouldn’t have wanted Robin reading the entire thing in the first place, didn’t occur to him until his third time through.

 _I should check if it belongs to anyone at the castle._ (And forced down the dread that arose.) _Maybe a clumsy servant, or misplaced by a duke or duchess_ (like the blame would, inevitably, be) _\- or maybe it belongs to one of the Shepherds…?_

A potential resolution to all of those possibilities existed...

“So- hold on a moment.” Bemusement, the closest setting to anger that Chrom had ever directed towards Robin. “You lack a name and anything identifiable- all you have is this book and the contents thereof- and you’re expecting me to know the author anyways?”

“The...the handwriting…” He flipped open the book, pointed to a random page, and Chrom leaned in slightly for an examination. “And...a girl named Nem, a farmer girl who played in the forest and loved reading ghost stories, she was mentioned a lot. Do you know her, or… anyone who might’ve liked her? They go on for a few pages about her.” _And on and on..._

Stood up, slowly shook his head. “I’m sorry, Robin. I can’t help.”

“I see.” Lowering his head and shutting the book, “Thank you anyways.”

“But the librarian,” Chrom said, just as Robin was about to apologize for wasting his time and turn away. “She keeps track of every book that enters and leaves the palace. Sharpest mind I know- well, aside from you. You should ask her about it.”

“Oh. Um, right. Thank you. I’ll get going-”

“-wait, Robin.”

Froze.

“Do you know that normally, the Shepherds eat their meals together?”

Normally didn’t include breakfast- if it had, then Robin wouldn’t have been able to sleep through the morning. Their regularly scheduled lunch was an alarm clock with people shouting, chatting, the occasional sound of shattering glass… It all sounded very chaotic.

_A closely knit group of soldiers._

_Friends._

“I’m...aware.”

The bluntness of the statement smacked into Chrom, caught him off guard. “Erm- I was thinking, you’re one of us, aren’t you? And you usually sleep through breakfast, sometimes lunch, but you should join us for dinner some night.”

It was a minute before he realized that “some night” meant “ _tonight_ ”, firmly casting the answer as a shake of the head. Chrom deflated.

“Are you sure…? You just seem- well, why not? We talk about all sorts of things-”

“-none of which I can join in on.”

Chrom very visibly struggled with what to say next. An uncertainty clouded it, as well.

“You don’t have to talk. You can just listen.”

_Listen. To what, exactly?_

_People shouting and chatting, the occasional shattering glass, the sound of friends bonding through shared experiences and the background hum of camaraderie- a Plegian walks into the room, and every conversation simultaneously grinds into a halt._

_(Everyone is watching.)_

_The murmurs start up again as the subjects shifts to him, and there is awkward silence as the half-hearted desire to be polite produces silence that replaces a punchline._

“I’m sorry.” He shook his head again. “Maybe next time.”

(It was always “next time.” Once, it had always been “tomorrow”, when Robin had let himself hope that eventually he’d find something to talk about, or that _they_ would find _him._ Of course, they never had. Nobody had cared enough, evidently.)

The lie itself had started out as a thin enough veneer to cover the implied truth, and more of it was exposed with every daily repetition. Chrom wasn’t stupid- he could easily see through a disguise wearing thin. But he was kind, and so he pretended not to acknowledge it.

Softly, and with a nod, “Alright. Next time, then.”

***

If there was one place Robin frequented more than his room, it would’ve been the library. Granted, there wasn’t much competition, because it was practically the only other location Robin frequented at all- and _frequented,_ even, might’ve been the wrong word, since it implied some sort of regularity and, more importantly, _frequency,_ neither of which applied to Robin’s sporadic visits. But it was still second place out of all other places in Ylisstol, and that deserved some special mission.

For one, the people present, if there were any at all, were often too absorbed in their books to look up and _notice_ him, and the few times they did would be brushed aside in favor of more reading. He paid no attention to the others- they extended the same courtesy to him. Neither party was concerned with the existence of the other, and that might’ve been the greatest part about the library. He certainly didn’t use it to check out _books_ \- he had enough of his own, and doing so would’ve meant interaction.

Usually, he didn’t mind being there. Usually, he didn’t need to talk to someone.

He’d seen the librarian before, mostly from a distance. She was one of the few in the castle who seemed wholly uninterested in his presence, and he had been fine limiting their relationship to that. He said nothing as he stood in front of her desk, anxious to break the unwritten truce between them.

She looked up from her book. Eventually.

“What do you want?”

(And the first thing she’d seen was the pattern on his sleeves.)

He held up the book. “I-”

“Doesn’t belong to the library,” she droned.

“I know that.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I’m looking for the owner.”

“What, did someone lose it? Or,” more accusingly, with a tone that suggested certainty, “did you steal it?”

“Someone lost it,” Robin said, emphasizing the second word. “I was told by Prince Chrom that you keep track of all the books that enter and leave the palace.”

A thoughtful pause. Her gaze wandered from the book up to his face, to his coat

_again_

and finally back to him. She was looking him in the eye, now. “Are you the Plegian that he hired to help captain his militia?” The tone had- shifted, to something much more polite and less genuine. Robin nodded. “I see! Well then, the least I could do is to help you…” Cover and spine were examined, pages flipped through a few times, and she hemmed and hawed, putting up a great show of caring. “Hmmm...I think we purchased this from an estate sale, recently.”

 _Estate sale_ . He knew the two words separately, what a _rummage_ sale was, having passed a few by the ports: opportunities for ships to get rid of their extra profit and turn more of a profit, and citizens would occasionally hold smaller versions of their own. After all, one man’s trash was another man’s treasure, and it was easy to sucker money from people so long as you priced the former as if it were the latter. Perhaps, then, an estate sale was just run for or by richer cohorts.

Another keyword in that statement: purchased. Meaning that whoever the owner was, they might not have necessarily wanted it anymore.

And yet-

 _I...I should still try to confirm it, at least. I should talk to the owner, I should make_ **_sure_ ** _\- and what if it was a mistake anyways? I should talk to them._

_I want to know who you are._

His thoughts scripted the inevitable confrontation. And there was a surprising lack of anything resembling apprehension that followed.

“Do you know the address?” he asked. It was given. He thanked her, tucked the book under his arm, turned to leave-

“Oh, and if you ever want to return to the library-” her tone was as sweet as honey, and the words oozed into his ears with every bit as much sliminess- “please do! We have lots and lots of absolutely wonderful books. And,” leaning forward slightly, “put in a good word with the Prince, will you?”

He hesitated. Then nodded.

Then he left.

***

It was a pleasant day: the cusp of summer transitioning into fall, and a gentle breeze carried by the streets let the citizens enjoy the sun without baking in its heat.

Ylisstol was a pleasant looking city. It had nice paved roads, nice brick buildings, nice little banners hanging from nice little ropes strung overhead, across the streets. The marketplace was always busy, it was cleaner than the villages he’d visited on his way there, and the people were always friendly to each other. Not necessarily to _others._

He would’ve had trouble calling the city itself pleasant, though: it wasn’t very often he found himself in the streets. He could hardly deal with the weight localized within the palace, and when he found himself outside (usually unwillingly), every single self-preservation demanded that he run back in, because he was _suffocating._

(One day he’d sat down on his bed, taken off his coat and folded it, staring at the purple eyes on the sleeves that gazed back at him- wondered if perhaps finding a new outfit might’ve helped, maybe getting rid of the one thing left of the person he used to be would make him less obvious of an _outsider._  And then, for reasons he still didn’t quite understand, he’d put it back on and hadn’t thought about getting rid of it since.)

There were also parts of the city that, while not exactly shabby or run-down, quite visibly didn’t have the same amount of time and effort put into the areas that were more readily seen. They were somewhat out of the way, hidden behind flashier residential areas where people who could almost afford living in the palace lived, and the energetic bustle of the marketplace: the unnoticed parts.

The address was leading him straight towards one of them.

Not slums. But the buildings that loomed over him, with dilapidation beginning to creep into some of the wood, had been built for maximizing space, housing the citizens that the public eye glanced over. The long shadows stretching across cracked stone paths shortened Robin’s steps at the same time as they made him walk a bit faster.

He reached the building, sooner than he’d intended. Sooner than he’d prepared for. One of the larger ones, and built for a singular family, with the signs of age present in the others rather conspicuously absent- this house was a nice one, he knew. _Chosen,_  not settled for.

He raised his hand to knock, felt the hesitation come somewhere between hello and thank you. Double checked the address, just to make sure, and once again, in case the numbers would’ve rearranged themselves in the second he looked away, and one last time even after he’d summoned the courage and it was already too late.

A man opened the door, and a moment passed where they both took each other in. He was late middle aged, the attempts at a beard hanging off his chin, and his eyes wandered first to Robin’s face- and then his sleeves.

Almost immediately, he took a defensive stance.

“What do you want?”

“Was...there an estate sale here, recently?”

“Yeah.” A snort. “Right before the house was sold to us.”

Robin _blinked._

“Sweetie!” The faint voice belonged to a woman, was warm and faintly, he could hear the quiet sounds of children talking to each other. The tone hit his ears strangely, the dissonance of _unfamiliarity_ mixing with knowledge that he’d heard it before. “Who is it?”

“Nothing important, darling!” The man’s voice softened, the roughness smoothed out for just a moment, then armed itself with poison as he turned back to Robin. “Is that all?”

“Um…Would you happen to know anything about the previous owner?”

“Why do you need to know?”

“I just want to return something.” Forcing the waver out of his voice, he held the diary up in the slight chance of recognition- no longer the slight _hope._

No reaction, except for the tide of relief that swept Robin up. Only a pause, and then- “Well, why not.” Unspoken, _how much harm could you cause with this information, anyways?_ “I don’t know anything about them. The previous owner went missing a while ago.”

This time, he couldn’t hide the falter. “Missing,” he repeated, quietly.

With no amount of gentleness, “That’s what I said.”

“Do you- might you- have any clue where they are?”

“If I did, then they wouldn’t be missing, would they?”

A hesitation.

And in that moment, the door slammed in his face.

***

_Missing._

The word lingered in his ears like muck coating fur, with every last bit of stink accompanying. It was the cold filth of a muddy road on a winter day, unavoidable but always there and every drop chilling him until it was strength of either resignation or simple denial that carried him forward.

_But not gone._

At least, not entirely- in the physical sense, if they were well and truly- _missing_. But they would’ve had neighbors who knew them, friends and family searching for them. Perhaps the search would’ve ended a bit ago, had they found no leads, but Robin was smart, as well as a new perspective. Whatever evidence they had collected, given enough time and effort, neither of which he lacked, he was certain he could’ve pieced it together to discover their fate.

“Oh- I’m sorry, I don’t know anything.” She was a young woman, very polite, staring at the ground because she hadn’t quite figured how to look anywhere at him besides his sleeves. “I didn’t even know that someone lived next door before the new neighbors, to be honest…”

“I apologize, darling. I can’t seem to recall ever doing anything with- well, whoever they were. I don’t think they ever showed up to any of my parties.”

“I just moved here recently, but I don’t think there was anyone living there before…”

“...thought it was haunted! I mean sometimes I heard someone moving, but nobody ever came out! But I guess…”

“...can’t help with…”

“...didn’t even know…”

“...tried to avoid that house, it always…”

“Wait, you mean someone lived in that creepy abandoned house before Mister and Miss Delacroix?” The straightforward child blinked owlishly up at him. “Who were they?”

The lump that had steadily grown from each failure had gotten impossible to swallow.

“I...I don’t know,” Robin managed.

_Does anybody?_

He walked away from another closed door. Sun was descending slowly through the sky, taking his conviction as it lowered.

His thumb traced the worn cover of the diary, taking note of every bump and dip, the small flaws and imperfections- _details_ \- trying to memorize them.

 _You wanted to explore the world when you grew up, after you followed your father on a trading expedition and realized for the first time just how_ **_wide_ ** _everything was. You love the ocean, because it’s a reminder of just how big everything is, and you wondered, the first time you saw it, if you would ever see the other side. Blue is your favorite color, the blue of a summer sky that reflects into the waters you dream about. And despite all that, you dislike seagulls more than anything._

_And I still don’t know anything about who you really are._

_And_ **_nobody_ ** _knows anything about you._

It was a pleasant day, on the cusp of summer. A gentle breeze carried what remained of the day’s fading warmth through the streets. Despite that, Robin wrapped his coat tightly around himself as numb legs carried him in a daze back to the palace, because all of a sudden, he felt- cold.

***

“I admit,” she said. “I’m rather surprised that you came to me, instead of my brother.”

 _Exalt._ It conferred power and responsibility over every life in a kingdom. A beacon of hope they would each look to for guidance, standing tall, never wavering. Someone that anyone could go to for any problem, no matter how big or small, with the reassurance that she would do her best to help them through it.

“I...thought that this would be more your domain.” Deferentially taking a step back, “but, if you’d rather me go to Chrom, then-”

“-no. I’m perfectly fine around you.” Her smile was as genuine as Chrom’s. “What, exactly, do you need access to the Royal Archives for?”

He’d lost count, by now, of how many times he’d held the diary up. Emmeryn peered at it, then looked at him.

“That’s not much of an explanation.”

“It...belongs to someone.” Lowered his arms. “They used to live at-” the address was given- “and I want to return it to them.”

“Used to,” Emmeryn mused. “And you have the address, which means it’s the person you’re looking for. And once you have the name, do you plan to search through all the files again, to find where they currently live?”

“No...not exactly.” And he explained. “The owner went missing- a while ago.”

Her expression changed.

“Robin...you _are_ aware of the definition of ‘missing’, yes?”

“Of course I am, your grace. But…”

She asked for what he couldn’t give.

“Then why are you doing this? Isn’t it rather pointless, now?”

“...because,” he stated, and there was something more than truth in his answer. “Someone should.”

_Missing._

“...normally, you would have to fill out a wealth of forms detailing exactly why you want access and where to. But you aren’t going to.”

Robin’s shoulders sagged. He drew a breath, preparing for the apology-

“After all, I can take you there myself.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “Come with me.”

***

A storm of scattered papers were spread out on the table before him, each of them a list of names. Collections of people who had been reported missing in the past few months.

Robin read through every single one of them, lingered for just a moment to commit the name to memory, unsure of who exactly he was looking for anyways. The diary owner remained unnamed-

 _But **you** have a name you’re trying to find, _he thought, and then attempted to shake it away. It was silly, after all, given the location he’d been found at. Plus, if he really was from Ylisstol, someone would’ve recognized him. Would’ve reached out, instead of just- watching.

In any case, he’d passed the date where he would’ve been found by Chrom anyways, and there’d been nothing that struck a chord within him- nothing that invoked that feeling of himself. Most of these people would’ve disappeared after he’d joined the Shepherds, and still he continued etching the names into his memory, still gave each of them a moment of individual attention before moving on.

_Why?_

The owner went missing a while ago. Not a few weeks or a few months or a few days. Which meant- how long had it been before anyone had noticed? Not the neighbors, but what about family or friends?

 _Hardly anyone remembers that you lived there, if they even knew you existed in the first place. And when they learned you were gone-_ he tried not to recall the mild surprise quickly followed by enough sympathy to pass a test of character, with the undercurrent of apathy drowning out the other two.

How long had it been for any of the people in front of him?

He reached the end of the page and started at the beginning again, hoping to carve their existences into something echoing permanence.

(Sometimes, a name was all you had.)

“You’ve been busy today.”

The words carried with them no accusation, the voice brought no surprise. A neutral statement, guarded by the same mask that obscured his face. It was the implication that bothered Robin, and so the papers were set down as head turned to look at the only person who might’ve been a greater mystery than himself.

“You were watching me,” he said, to Marth. “All day?”

“No.” Marth shook his head. “Only when you went out by yourself into the capital.”

“I’m surprised. You seemed so concerned with only Chrom, the last times we crossed paths.”

“I concern myself with the future of all of you,” Marth stated, then seemed to pause, as if to consider his next words. After a while, “Chrom is...certainly a priority. But you’re a part of those concerns, too.”

Robin knew better than to bother asking what those concerns were- quite frankly, he doubted he would’ve received answers anyways, or none that were straightforward, and there weren’t exactly reasons to be suspicious. And there would’ve been a sort of hypocrisy, in distrusting a person he knew almost nothing about. So instead, he asked the other question pressing at his mind. “Why are you here?”

“I can’t say.”

“How did you get in?”

“I have my ways.”

No straightforward answers. Right.

“I could alert the guards outside, and you’d be arrested.” The threat was as empty as the silence that immediately followed, and they both knew it.

Eventually, “You’re not that type of person.”

“What type of person?” And at the same time, _How do_ ** _you_** _know anything about me?_

“Not the type of person who would condemn innocents, not without proof. And… also not the type of person to seek out people, if he can help it.” Robin let the unspoken accusation hang in the air, the weight increasing with every passing moment. “...So I have to ask: why did you talk to so many people today? Does the diary really mean that much? Surely you knew, deep down, that it was a lost cause.”

“So what if it was?” He very deliberately kept his gaze on the papers.

“That doesn’t explain much.”

“‘I have my ways,’” he quoted, airily.

“The difference,” Marth said, sounding rather huffy, “is that I _can’t_ speak about my intentions. There’s nothing at stake about you telling me about why you spent the afternoon pursuing a fool’s errand.”

“So you can’t explain, but I can. And because I can, I must.”

“Yes- no- _listen-_ ”

Robin _laughed._  There was something about Marth that reminded him very much of Chrom or Emmeryn, and part of it was the genuity he felt from all of them. And for that reason…

“I just-” Marth perked up, Robin hesitated- “ _thought._ I thought that- well, at first, it was just…” He allowed the words to trail off, hoped that what was unspoken would manifest themselves into the air and spare him the confession. “I felt like- I finally had somebody to talk to.” And then they led into memories of earlier that day. “I don’t know- anything. Not really. People ask me how I feel about something and I...can’t say. Because- I don’t know. But if I found whoever owned this diary- maybe we could talk, because we would- I would have something to talk _about._ Because we’d both know the exact same things.”  

Marth said nothing.

“But then- I learned they went missing.” And he nearly _spat_ the word out. “And- nobody seems to care. It’s like they disappeared. Vanished, like they never existed, and nobody seems to care whether they ever existed at all.” A shaky breath was drawn. “...how long did it take people to notice?”

_Did they even notice at all?_

_Why didn’t anyone notice?_

_Why hasn’t anyone looked for you?_

_Why doesn’t anyone care?_

At some point, he had stopped thinking about the diary owner.

“I just- want to know who they were.” He turned his head, letting the tears fall anywhere but the papers. “But...now they’re gone.”

“Gone,” Marth repeated softly, and Robin felt a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it gently. “Da- Robin…” (He was too busy trying to shake the odd feeling of deja-vu, of memories he didn’t remember making, and the fleeting glimpses he caught that insisted this scene had involved Chrom, once upon a time, to notice the correction.) “...can I tell you about someone I used to know?”

Robin looked up, gave a slight nod. Marth returned with a slow sigh, and beneath the mask, Robin could tell he was struggling to gather together the words he wanted to say- how much to reveal, how much would be helpful, and how much to deliberately exclude.

“There was- someone close to me. Back where I came from.” Hesitantly, his hand gripped the hilt of his sword tightly, “...he was- like a father to me. For as long as I can remember, he’d always been there, and in very few of those memories, I remember him smiling.” Seeing Robin’s expression, “No, he wasn’t unkind, or- not even a bad person, really, at least I don’t… but he wasn’t happy, I knew that. I remember knowing it, and not knowing when I’d even learned it. It had been as basic a fact to me as breathing.” And there, Marth’s voice softened. “When he smiled, it was always around his family. They were the only people he had in the world.”

Robin waited. He knew that Marth wouldn’t have wanted to share the story, if there hadn’t been a point to it.

“He was an incredibly private man. He didn’t talk a lot about his past, or the things he liked to do. I only realized recently that, despite having grown up with him, I… didn’t really know him that well at all. I think that he might’ve been a kinder person, once.” (Looked at Robin, and _knew._ ) “But something happened, and then- he wanted to be alone. And even when he had a family, he’d been alone for too long to know how to stop.”

Quietly, “What happened to him?”

Marth stiffened.

“You keep talking about him in the past tense. So,” and Robin met Marth’s eyes through the obscured gaze, “what happened to him?”

“...he’s gone, too.” And now Marth was the one with his head turned away.

“I’m...I’m sorry. I didn’t-”

“No.” Marth’s voice was firm. “If you hadn’t asked...I would’ve told you, eventually, anyways. Because- I saw him almost every day of my life, he was family to me, and I still hardly know anything about him. And now I’ll never be able to find out. All I have to remember him by are a name, a face, and a few dim memories of smiles.” The sigh was soft, and when he met Robin’s eyes eventually, an unspoken understanding passed between the two of them.

“Do you still...miss him?”

“Every day.” There was nothing but simple truth in those words. No need to disguise them, or perhaps no desire. “Robin, if I asked you to do two things, would you do them for me?”

“...I suppose it depends on what they are.”

Marth nodded. First at the diary- and then at Robin himself. “Let them go.”

It took a moment to set in. “Huh? But-”

“-they’re gone. They existed, and they vanished, and we’re never going to know who they really were, are we? And no amount of caring now is ever going to bring them back, no amount of obsessing is ever going to reveal anything new…so there’s no point. All we can do is remember them for who they were to us- even if there’s not much to remember.”

“But…”  

“...even if you managed to find the owner… I don’t think your memories would return.”

Robin _flinched._

“You’re still you, Robin, even if you’re missing a few pieces. You’re still,” Marth very audibly faltered, “kind. You don’t have to be anyone else.”

And after a bit had passed, “What’s the second?”

Marth paused. “They were afraid of reaching out,” he said. “You want to be remembered for something other than just existing? You want to find something to connect with someone over? ...Then don’t be. If you keep hiding yourself away, nobody’s going to find anything deeper than what they can see.”

Robin looked away. And when he looked back, Marth was gone.

He glanced at one of the windows, outside. The sun was just beginning to dip below the horizon.

He thought about those words as he headed to the mess hall, as he peered through a window and saw an untouched plate of food sitting beside a captain who broke off his own conversations to glance hopefully at the door.

 _I’m perfectly fine around you._ And maybe her brother was, too.

Slow inhale. Exhale shakily.

He opened the door.

***

Robin tensed. Sure enough, there was a lull in the buzz of the room, the constant conversation having been put on hold as everyone turned to look at him, to watch him and all of a sudden he felt very small in the doorway, hands grew clammy and he violently ejected what Marth had told him out of his mind-

-everyone turned back to their own conversations.

Robin blinked. His fingers reached up and brushed against his sleeves, the lines of intersecting purple that marked him as an outsider, and trying to remember the last time _this_ had happened froze him long enough for Chrom to close in.

“Robin!” The smile was glowing, and it was genuine. “I thought you weren’t going to eat with us today-?”

“I...had a change of heart,” Robin said.

“Well, that’s great!” And then Chrom was leading him to a spot at the table, the spot right next time. Where Robin was, and where, as he was slowly beginning to realize, he belonged. “I had the chefs prepare a plate for you tonight anyways, of course, in case this would happen.” (The undertones of “every night” slipped past his ears.) “What exactly changed your mind, anyways? Did you ever find the owner of the diary?”

“Um- no, I never did- I came to a realization, that was all.”

“Oh, did you?” Chrom pushed the plate of food towards him. “Here, you should eat up, I don’t think I saw you at lunch either…”

“Oh, I’m not hungry… I just wanted to be here.” The words were foreign, they tasted strange on his tongue, but the flavor was easily buried under the scents of the room and food right under his nose as Chrom pushed again, insisted that he eat something lest he wake up in the middle of the night from his stomach protesting the emptiness. Robin looked up, into Chrom’s eyes and then all around the room. He took a moment to watch. And for the first time, he _noticed_.

“It’s...really lively in here.”

“It always is.”

It _still_ was. For the first time, he wasn’t only watching- the talking and the gossip and the laughter surrounded him, and he wasn’t an outsider, not to them. Not a Plegian, not a Tactician, just- Robin.

_“Well, you’re one of us, aren’t you?”_

_A closely knit group of soldiers._

_Friends…?_

“It’s...nice,” he managed.

And then there was a spoonful of soup stuffed into his mouth.

“ _Eat_ _.”_

Robin blinked a few times. Smiled, then swallowed and laughed.

 _We’re not friends. Not yet. But it can’t hurt to_ **_try_ ** _. And at least I know I have a place I can start out from._

_...maybe..._

He reached out, took Chrom’s hand, and the smile dropped off Chrom’s face to be replaced with wide eyes.

“Thanks.”

“For...what?” There was redness beginning to bloom in Chrom’s face.

“For being my friend.” _For… helping._  He made a mental note to thank Marth, too, the next time they met. _Are we friends?_

 _If not… I’d like to be._ It would be hard, but- it would be easier now, too, he felt.

“...oh. Right. You’re welcome?”

Robin let go of Chrom’s hand. “I think I’ll eat with you guys in here, now.”

“You’ll have to wake up earlier, then.”

Robin frowned, then saw Chrom’s teasing expression.

 _Is that something people do? Make fun of each other?_ He didn’t exactly have any prior experience to draw from...

“You just wake up too early,” he tried.

Chrom- laughed. And Robin was relieved.

The first real smile of the day came from warmth that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room.

 

**Author's Note:**

> no the plot twist isn't that Robin was the owner of the diary all along
> 
> that's dumb
> 
> (This was written partly as a callout to myself, cause it's been 5 months since I moved to a new school and I still don't really have any friends :///)


End file.
